Translating Aspirations into Practical Steps in the Tamera Community: Interview with Rui Braga

Introduction

Historically, Tamera functioned and grew in an organic way, based on trust. More recently, as the community grew, the informal organic structures were being stretched and challenged. 

“For the previous 25 years, Tamera worked on an organic information flow based on high-trust and intimacy. However, as the community grew and developed, it also saw the emergence of divergence and conflict in some areas. This made it difficult to sustain a high level of trust — which eventually became too great an obstacle for an informal and organic governance system. We needed a whole different system to ensure the community could still mobilise as one and make decisions as one.” 

As of 2025, the Tamera community has 120 adults and 30 children as residents. Challenges began to surface around information access and whole-group decision-making. 

“It is so easy to work in isolated groups where you can make decisions organically, but without information flow, you can impact a whole other layer of the community that is not so empowered to share their needs. As the community grew, we needed a new system.” 

When Miki Kashtan and others from NGL arrived at Tamera in 2021, at the invitation of another community member A’ida Shibli, the community was in a process of tension and transformation – key founding figures were stepping back, and a new generation was stepping in.

“The founding generation was concerned that the essence of Tamera was getting lost. Younger generations was aspiring to take on responsibility and co-carriership of the project. However, they weren’t seen as having a deep embodiment of Tamera’s vision. This, among many other factors, gave rise to a growing rift and friction between generations and between different parts of the community.” 

“We were also waking up to the dynamics of power and privilege and how these dynamics were unexamined in the community, thanks to Carlin Quinn & Robin DiAngelo bringing this in. Miki and NGL inspired us to hold some of those conversations in an integrative way. And besides that, they also brought a whole visionary approach to decision-making, organisational systems, and creating agreements that support us to align with our vision and values.”

How Tamera Engaged with NGL

NGL aligned with Tamera’s vision, where power was decentralised and decisions were made with the consideration of all people and non-human beings, yet also pushed its edges. 

Tools and practices introduced:

• Decision making and information flow systems.
• Vision Mobilization (VM) framework.
• A “practical visionary” approach: translating large aspirations into actionable steps, like purpose, mission elements, action items, agreements.
• A “capacity lens” to work with nonviolence values and vision: in a way that doesn’t lead to a big inner struggle about the gap between vision and reality. 
• Systems rooted in an embodied sense of nonviolence, non-coercion, guiding the process in an integrated way.
• Agreements as anchoring principles behaviorally rather than rigid rules.

Engagements over time:

• In 2020, Miki Kashtan visited Tamera with a pod, invited by A’ida Shibli.
• In 2021, Miki returned with a pod to hold a large community process and to give a multi-day workshop on Convergent Facilitation (CF).
• Since 2021, community members studied NGL materials including Miki’s packets and formed study groups.
• NGL coaching continued through calls and hybrid (in-person and remote) support.

Miki and NGL was one teacher among others that shaped the body of the community. They also had strong teachers on grief, deep interpersonal work, and other initiations over this time.

Rui’s Journey with NGL

Rui was introduced to NGL’s work when they came to Tamera in 2021. The body of knowledge and values Miki Kashtan shared resonated deeply with Rui. 

“They became a lighthouse for me to engage in places of divergence and friction. They guided my work in the community.”

In 2022, Rui and others had the impulse to develop new decision-making agreements for Tamera. 

“I had very little knowledge of what a decision-making system was and how to approach the task of creating one for Tamera. But by reading Miki’s packets, I could access the information to begin to answer these questions that were so alive within me.” 

Rui held a series of interviews with community members from Tamera, exploring the existing decision-making system at Tamera, one that was implicit with unspoken agreements that not everyone could access. These interviews were used to map the limitations of the former decision-making system, and served as a base to drafting an alternative. Together with a group of community members, the draft was developed into a comprehensive proposal that was then adopted by the community, becoming the decision-making system used today.

Supported by NGL, Rui and Tamera have developed other systems too – for information flow, feedback flow, guided by the values of nonviolence, non-coercion, and integration.

Rui describes his engagement with NGL as a personal journey in community-building:

“In the community, we have key contradictions, around theories of change. The phenomenon of different narratives, the importance of making room for them, acknowledging divergences. It was impressive to see how people can live in such different realities, different perceptions of realities, how it’s so different to bridge these realities. Sometimes they feel irreconcilable. I also feel humility in this work of community building, and working with these principles and values.”

Lessons for Nonviolence Practices in Communities

While it’s still an ongoing and non-linear process, Tamera has experienced increased capacity for decision making, a growing awareness of clarity and transparency for information flow, and for systems that support trust across generations. However, these changes are not without tension and challenge. Many lessons emerge from Rui for evolving in community:

Change can only move at the speed of trust and integration

“It was a massive change to introduce a decision-making and governance system. I’m grateful for how much of it has landed. But it’s a long journey for it to land in the culture, for people to understand the reasons why. We didn’t just take sociocracy and implement it, but there are real principles and values that respond to real limitations and needs and vision in the system. That’s why we’re going step by step. Otherwise, too fast would trigger too much resistance.”

Continuous experiential learning creates ripple effects

“We are in continuous learning in the systems we developed, on a journey to decentralize capacity to care for the whole. We’ve given clarity to a decision making pathway – to transform a proposal into a decision, any community member can engage to initiate changes that could make a big impact. There are moments for that knowledge to come forth. Because of the work we initiated, the learning happens organically. Because we have a decision-making system – and regularly move big decisions through it – we can work with the agreements we’ve put in place, and more importantly, with the principles and values behind them.”

Structures can be a challenge to power and privilege

“Agreements and structures changed the culture of the community – it’s a reality check that not everyone is at peace with it. It can land as ‘external rules’ that go against the organic flow of life. But the ‘organic flow of life’ may be what worked but produced impacts that were not recognized before, that we are starting to recognize. Privilege is meant to stay invisible, especially for the ones who hold it. Our socialization maintains this, it’s been a big process in the community, which created a strong backlash. It’s a painful process to deconstruct the power dynamic – how the community was organized, who had access to decision making, to information.”

A large multigenerational project needs space to hold pain and power

“There have been many wounds, some are visible, some are invisible, some are connected to power dynamics. They don’t just need to be spoken, they need to be held. To process this huge pile of material from high-intensity social experimentation. Then, to peel away all the layers, wounds, sense of exhaustion, mourning of things we have lost, where we’re in an unknown space as a community – to consider: what is this shared project?”